"Fuck Cancer" Family Game Night

As anyone reading this post is already aware, my cousin Laura was diagnosed with bone cancer earlier this month, and it has sent the entire family reeling. I think I have felt every imaginable emotion in the past 2 weeks, and I have been reminded - yet again - that I have an amazing support system in my family and friends; the only positive spin you can put on something like this is that when the going is tough, it feels so good to be in this family.

Karen flew in Thursday evening for the weekend, and I was able to spend a lot of quality time with her and Laura, which was great. I stopped in at the house on Thursday after dinner and was just planning to grab a key from Laura and head home, but the mood was pleasant so I stuck around to chat, then did my grocery shopping with Karen and Aunt Barbara before I went home.

Laura's biopsy appointment was scheduled for Friday, so after running a couple morning errands I met up with Karen for lunch while Laura was at Kaiser. Those results are coming on Tuesday, and we all felt like maybe a little bit of fun was necessary before everyone gets bogged down with diagnoses, treatments, options, etc. So Karen, Laura and I went and got pedicures on Saturday morning, and then decided on a family game night at my apartment for the evening. It ended up being my mom and dad, Laura & Tanner, Karen, Julie, myself and Mark - yep, Mark met some Whitmores AND my parents in one swoop last night, the poor guy! It was a ton of fun...tons. Lots of typical Whitmore yelling (at the game), lots of drinks, and lots of laughing. I think it was just what we all needed - fun, support, and a night of not talking about cancer.

I was anxious about inviting Mark, not because I wasn't ready for him to meet my parents or anything like that, just simply because I am always anxious about asking him to do things with my family. Him and I see "family things" in different lights - I think meeting family is much less of a big thing than he does. That's mostly credited to the fact that his ex had a kid that spent 4 years as a part of his family, growing up with his 3 young nephews, and his family suffered from his break up. He is super hesitant to bringing someone else into his family this soon. And (after getting my feelings hurt & having a really good talk about it) I get it, respect it, and am not offended by it. But my family just isn't like that. We are big, accepting, in & out, and its just not so serious. And one thing that I really value in Mark is that he accepts that as well - he doesn't take it too seriously when I invite him to play games with my parents, and he doesn't think it is such a big huge thing to be involved with my family. I love that we can communicate our differences this well and just take each other at face value. **gush, gush, gush.**

Anyways, so point is, we all had a good time. Laura got fairly wasted and gave us all a ton to laugh about, we had one neighbor knock on the door because we were so loud, and we all ended the evening feeling ready to take care of Laura and Tanner - and each other - as her results come back this week. And I think we learned not to have parties in an apartment that's only 600 square feet. :)